To qualify, a family of four in 2010 needed to earn less than $22,314. Some 46 million Americans, 15 percent of the population, qualified.

And in what squalor were America’s poor forced to live?

Well, 99 percent had a refrigerator and stove, two-thirds had a plasma TV, a DVD player and access to cable or satellite, 43 percent were on the Internet, half had a video game system like PlayStation or Xbox.

Three-fourths of the poor had a car or truck, nine in 10 a microwave, 80 percent had air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

America’s poor enjoy amenities almost no one had in the 1950s, when John K. Galbraith described us as “The Affluent Society.”

What about homelessness? Are not millions of America’s poor on the street at night, or shivering in shelters or crowded tenements?

Well, actually, no. That is what we might call televised poverty. Of the real poor, fewer than 10 percent live in trailers, 40 percent live in apartments, and half live in townhouses or single-family homes.

Forty-one percent of poor families own their own home.

But are they not packed in like sardines, one on top of another?

Not exactly. The average poor person’s home in America has 1,400 square feet — more living space than do Europeans in 23 of the 25 wealthiest countries on the continent.

Two-thirds of America’s poor have two rooms per person, while 94 percent have at least one room per person in the family dwelling.

Only one in 25 poor persons in America uses a homeless shelter, and only briefly, sometime during the year.

What about food? Do not America’s poor suffer chronically from malnutrition and hunger?

Not so. The daily consumption of proteins, vitamins and minerals of poor children is roughly the same as that of the middle class, and the poor consume more meat than the upper middle class.

Some 84 percent of America’s poor say they always have enough food to eat, while 13 percent say sometimes they do not, and less than 4 percent say they often do not have enough to eat.

Only 2.6 percent of poor children report stunted growth. Poor kids in America are, on average, an inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the youth of the Greatest Generation that won World War II.

In fiscal year 2011, the U.S. government spent $910 billion on 70 means-tested programs, which comes to an average of $9,000 per year on every lower-income person in the United States.

Among the major programs from which the poor receive benefits are Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Security Income, food stamps, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) food program, Medicaid, public housing, low-income energy assistance and the Social Service Block Grant.

Children of the poor are educated free, K-12, and eligible for preschool Head Start, and Perkins Grants, Pell Grants and student loans for college.

Lyndon Johnson told us this was the way to build a Great Society.

Did we? Federal and state spending on social welfare is approaching $1 trillion a year, $17 trillion since the Great Society was launched, not to mention private charity. But we have witnessed a headlong descent into social decomposition.

Half of all children born to women under 30 in America now are illegitimate. Three in 10 white children are born out of wedlock, as are 53 percent of Hispanic babies and 73 percent of black babies.

Rising right along with the illegitimacy rate is the drug-use rate, the dropout rate, the crime rate and the incarceration rate.

The family, cinder block of society, is disintegrating, and along with it, society itself. Writes Rector, “The welfare system is more like a ‘safety bog’ than a safety net.”
Heritage scholars William Beach and Patrick Tyrrell put Rector’s numbers in perspective:

Today … 67.3 million Americans — from college students to retirees to welfare beneficiaries — depend on the federal government for housing, food, income, student aid or other assistance. … The United States reached another milestone in 2010. For the first time in history, half the population pays no federal income taxes.

The 19th century statesman John C. Calhoun warned against allowing government to divide us into “tax-payers and tax-consumers.” This, he said, “would give rise to two parties and to violent conflicts and struggles between them, to obtain the control of the government.”

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30 Responses to Did the “Great Society” Ruin Society?

Excellent article Pat. I would call this the triumph of Socialism. That is the triumph of the Political Class being able to take from the producers in the Economic Class and give to the non producers who vote for a living. Of course several questions always arise. Such as; What would happen if the people who receive all this largess, at any level, were not allowed to vote in any election? Or.What would happen if enough Americans involved themselves in a serious tax strike? Or,What happens if the producers stop producing? Or,What happens when the checks go out and that because of massive inflation those checks are worthless? Sounds a little like Greece or maybe Atlas Shrugged……. Who is John Galt?

Really, the poor are doing so well because of all those government programs, so let’s just go ahead and eliminate them. Then they won’t be doing so well, and we can start all over and reinstitute the programs.

Anyway, a lot of this is BS. Gizmos and gadgets are cheap. Housing, energy higher education, and health care are not. And food becoming less so.

Cars and trucks? Well, first off, if these poor folks have, or intend to have, a job, they will need a car or truck in about seven eighths of the US to get to and from work. And, of course, there are cars and trucks and cars and trucks. What kind of cars do poor people own? How old are they? How much did they cost? And how reliable are they? A poor guy who owns a barely running, twenty year old Corolla so that he can to and from work is not exactly living high on the hog.

“Federal and state spending on social welfare is approaching $1 trillion a year”

And how much of that goes to the poor? A third, maybe?

“The United States reached another milestone in 2010. For the first time in history, half the population pays no federal income taxes.”

Completely and utterly false. Until the Civli War, no one in America paid any federal income tax. After that tax was abolished, and after a later, short lived tax was struck down by the Supreme Court, no one in America paid any federal income taxes again until 1913. And, in 1913, when the tax was instituted, less than five per cent of the population paid it. The tax didn’t kick in unless you were making significantly more than the average income. In 1940, the population of the US was over 120 million, yet only eight million Americans paid the income tax. It was only with World War II that the tax was expanded to include 60 million people.

And that is where the overwhelming majority of folks who have a beef with supposed high taxes on the rich always start counting, in the forties or fifties, as if the income tax had not already been around for thirty to forty years before that. The whole purpose of the tax, when the Constitutional Amendment permitting it was ratified and when it was first instituted, was to have the rich pay all of it, the poor AND middle class none of it. That’s why it sailed through the State legislatures so quickly. Consumers were being hurt by the high tariff, which allowed US corporations to charge high prices. And, of course, the poor and middle class were hurt by this more than the rich, who could afford to pay more for consumer goods and who had an ownership interest in those US corporations. Progressivity, to the extent that half of the population doesn’t pay the tax at all, was built into the system from the very beginning. Indeed, the tax was much, much more progressive in that sense at the beginning. The “anomaly” was the period starting with WWII and Korea and lasting until the 1980’s, when more and more of the middle class and even the working class were forced to pay it. Yet that is what the crybaby rich and their stooges want to use as the baselline.

Well, the rich can easily afford to pay, the middle class only marginally, and the poor not at all. I say let’s go back to the “original intent” of the Sixteenth Amendment and only tax the wealthy.

“The 19th century statesman John C. Calhoun warned against allowing government to divide us into ‘tax-payers and tax-consumers.’ This, he said, ‘would give rise to two parties and to violent conflicts and struggles between them, to obtain the control of the government.’ We are there, Mr. Calhoun, we are there.”

Sure we are, if you conveniently forget to consider payroll taxes, State taxes, local taxes, Federal taxes on liquor, tobacco, tires and gas, user fees, and the like. All of which have a disproportionate impact on the middle class and the poor as compared to the wealthy.

And, in the nineteenth century, the overwhelming majority of Americans paid no signficant federal taxes of any kind, except indirectly through the tariff.Yet there was no “taxpayer” or “tax consumer” party then. And there isn’t now either. Both parties contain significant numbers of folks who pay the federal income tax and those who don’t. Aren’t we always hearing about rich, “limousine” liberal Democrats? Don’t you think they pay taxes? And about economically struggling, culturaly conservative, blue collar Republicans, many of whom don’t pay the tax?

This is a bugaboo that has existed since time immemorial. The reallity is that money is the mother’s milk of politics, and the rich are always more than able to get their voices heard.

We should certainly provide support the poor– who in their right mind wants to live like Haiti? But we should require work from anyone able-bodied or of working age (with exceptions for mothers of pre-school children– yes I think they– or the father if not the mother– should be home with the children- child-rearing is a real job, and one of great social value).
Since the private sector does not produce enough jobs we should revive something like the WPA, though structured for our era not the 1930s. Six months unemployment– sure. But after that you only get paid if you work.

Mr. Buchanan is too smart to fall for the hopelessly shallow argument from Heritage known as Poor People Have Microwaves Theory. This is a slight of hand by “conservatives” to keep them from seeing the warts of capitalism. As Robert Rector continues to support trade policies that make more and more Americans poor, it serves his purpose to say that being poor ain’t all that bad.

I cannot undertake to point to that article of the Constitution that allows me to spend my constituents’ money on benevolence.

Madison, the putative father of the Constitution could not find the article in the federal Constitution that permitted the federal, not state government, to engage in social welfare spending. If he couldn’t find it, it’s not there.

Good intentions are irrelevant. Actions only are what matters. And the so called great society programs, to the extent that they involved federal funds, were unconstitutional, PERIOD. This includes medicare, medicaide, food stamps, all of it. Go back and read what Madison said as a congressman when the subject of assistance to the French fleeing the horrors of the French revolution came up. And Romney as noted here, by talking about “fixing it” instead of talking about dismantling altogether just wants to perpetuate the problem.

We as individuals have a “Good Samaratan” obligation to help those in need. We should, as individuals assist those to the degree they can be assisted. At the state level, not covered by the federal constitution we can institute programs that we can more closely monitor to deal with people at a local level. But we need to once and for all acknowledge the fundamental unconstitutional nature of any “benevolence” spending at the federal level and that means foreign aid including George Bush’s much lauded “AIDS” program which was being dealt with much better by private charities.

Good intentions. As we see, the road to hell is really paved with them. But that goes for conservatives too. That means blatantly unconstitutional actions like the NDAA language that destroys the Fifth Amendment cannot be supported in the name of “Saving The Country”. That the Patriot Act must be repealed. That there can be no more executions of Americans abroad not on a battlefield, again in the name of Saving The Country. That detainee abuse stops now, that invasions of countries like Iraq will not happen again because as the late Jeanne Kirkpatrick said, show me the article in the Constitution that allows it and none of her fellow conservatives could. That conservatives if, given the broad support amond alleged conservatives like Sean and Rush and Mark and so many others, there are very many left, they have to understand that the Constitutional restraints apply to them too. That their “good intentions” are no more a reason to violate the document than the those who pushed the great society programs or obamacare and other liberal programs today. Tyranny from the right is no more acceptable than tyranny from the left.

Anyone who has been outside the First World (I have) knows that there is a definition of poverty there that bears no resemblance to the definition of poverty here. Pointing out that the “poor” here have cars, televisions, and microwaves is in no way irrelevant when discussing poverty in a worldwide sense. Our “poor” are still the world’s 1%.

Anyone who has lived in the ghetto (I have) knows that there is a vast under the table cash economy there. Some of it deals in illegal items like drugs, prostitution, and resale of stolen goods. But much of it does not. Big, brand-new SUVs parked in front of ghetto houses and apartment blocks are not at all unusual. With no stigma attached to welfare anymore, it gets used by people who make little money on paper, but much more in reality, to cover ancillary expenses. Why turn down free money?

Another way to look at the idea that liquor and tobacco taxes disproportionately affect the poor is to point out that our poor have the leisure and luxury to spend money on liquor and tobacco. Cruise around the ghetto (I have), and you’ll notice that one thing there’s no lack of is liquor stores. There couldn’t be that many of them if the local market didn’t have a high demand for their products. One might be excused for noting that the tax dollars that we send to the ghetto seem to be subsidizing an awful lot of drinking, even alcoholism. One might be excused for thinking this a bad idea.

As for the idea, expressed by someone here, that no more than a third of money spent on anti-poverty programs actually sees a poor person, that’s actually being generous. But if 2/3 of that money isn’t actually spent on poor people, then are these programs not really anti-poverty programs, but pro-government bureaucrat programs? Can objecting to this use of money really, then, be said to be heartless?

Why is it so unreasonable to say that the choice to give to charity should be a private one? What gives big-government liberals the right to impose their morality on others by force of law?

Pat Buchanan claims the poor are well off under welfare (poor isn’t really all that poor), but, dang it, I don’t want the poor on welfare and dependent on the State — all the less likely to object to state imposed tyranny.

I want them to have a job.

When Romney says, “I’ll fix it.”

That sounds like, “Okay, we’ll continue to have a dependent class on welfare.”

The point is not to eliminate the safety net, the point is to have a political economy that generates jobs up and down the economic ladder.

Sadly, this piece has a familiar ring to it. Periodically, Mr. Buchanan slips into conventional conservative carping about welfare, this time to justify Romney’s failure of vision to describe an American Political Economy where jobs are created up and down the economic ladder.

So, that people can get off welfare by getting a job even if it means a job at the bottom of the ladder.

But right now, and, for some time, the Great American Jobs Machine has had a busted crank shalft and we need a mechanic and a policy can fix it.

The American Political Economy isn’t generating a new jobs profile that will move people off of welfare and Romney doesn’t have a vision — or see the need — for a political economy which moves people from welfare to work.

That’s what Conservatives where complaining about in reference to Romney’s statement.

“Cruise around the ghetto (I have), and you’ll notice that one thing there’s no lack of is liquor stores. There couldn’t be that many of them if the local market didn’t have a high demand for their products. One might be excused for noting that the tax dollars that we send to the ghetto seem to be subsidizing an awful lot of drinking, even alcoholism. One might be excused for thinking this a bad idea.”

Perhaps alcohol, and drugs, offer a relatively cheap form of escapism and entertainment for poor folks. They can’t afford to go on vacation or to fancy restaurants, theaters, and so on. A cheap bottle of booze is within their reach, however. And, of course, not all or even most of the money spent in ghetto liquor stores is from tax dollars. People do work in ghettos, many of them, as you mentioned, “off the books,” in one way or another. And, other than TANF (“welfare”), most of the assistance to the poor (SNAP, ie food stamps, housing assistance, job training, medicaid, etc) is not in cash. There just aren’t that many “tax dollars” floaing around the ghetto.

“As for the idea, expressed by someone here, that no more than a third of money spent on anti-poverty programs actually sees a poor person, that’s actually being generous. But if 2/3 of that money isn’t actually spent on poor people, then are these programs not really anti-poverty programs, but pro-government bureaucrat programs?”

Certainly bureacracy uses up some portion of the money. But the rest of it goes to the middle and even upper classes. I think Buchanan is counting Social Security and Medicare, which are not means tested at all, in his one trillion dollars a year of “social welfare.”

I also think he must be counting veterans’ pensions and veteran’s affairs, too, which I think are more properly described as “defense” than as “social welfare.” Indeed, left unsaid by Buchanan is that “defense” spending, considered broadly (ie including veteran’s pensions and affairs, the part of the Energy Dept devoted to nuclear weapons, the cost of the various wars ((which are not part of the
DOD budget but rather through “special appropriations”)), militarily connected foreign aid, intelligence agencies, “Homeland Security,” etc), actually amounts to one trillion dollars a year in spending, Maybe, just maybe, some of that spending could be cut.

As for the bureacracy, at least a fair portion of it is devoted to scrupulously enforing the eligibility requirements for the various programs. Conservatives are very, very worried when a few crumbs fall off the table and go to some poor person who doesn’t “deserve” them. For that reason, TANF, SNAP, etc have to spend a lot of time and money and personnel resources on policing fraud and abuse and even preventing simple mistakes that result in overpayments..

When reliance on others (government, charity groups, family) no longer holds the stigma of shame, we have lost. The truly poor, in my mind, are those who cannot afford the necessities of live (food, shelter, clothing). All the other items are nice to haves. There is no reason the government should be allowed to take the money I have rightfully earned and distribute it to others who have not advanced to the level I have. They must do as I have, slowly progress up the food chain in society, spending wisely and understaning my place in the big scheme of things. Everyone cannot make $__ amount of dollars. In a capitalistics society, there MUST be the haves and have nots. Everyone should have a goal of becoming one of the haves. Some will reach it and some will not. However, when the stigma of being a have not is removed and there is really no incentive to rising from have not status (i.e. government handouts, no taxes, etc), why work to do so. It is easier to take from others.
Instead of stating how it is unfair there are poor in this country, how about making it so the poor are incentivised to raise their status.
Much more to say on the topic but we are leaving comments, not short stories.

The U.S has been devastated by the horrid post-industrial policies of the U.S. power elites, who are also the people who promoted the anti- family 60’s counterculture. The chickens have come home to roost leaving about one third of Americans as a new underclass, people who actually do exist and live at or near poverty level. Pat Buchanan knows better, but he is merely showing us his tough guy or ‘slave-owner’ side.

@greenback, et al I think you guys miss the point. The question here is what is poor? If the vast majority of “poor” are not poor, suffering, then two things are immediately apparent. There is no justification for increases in social services for them and second what we spent on them now is wasteful. Clearly implied in your comments is the disdain for class. Unfortunately, you cannot use government to make us all equal, other than in basic rights. Humans are diverse (unequal).

Your analysis on tax history may be correct; I don’t know tax history as well as I should perhaps. But, you do admit one thing- that it was initially struck down (requiring an amendment). What this should tell you is how antithetical taxation is to the American spirit that a constitutional amendment forced it. So until you guys acknowledge that I am willing to allow some creative license for the interpretation of modern rates.

You need social welfare programs if your nation subsidizes the exportation of jobs to other nations.

You need social welfare programs if your nation has unrestricted immigration, amnesties etc.

You need social welfare programs if your left wing media continues to glamorize individualism and rebellion over social cohesion, exploitation of instant gratification rather than a well planned staid organized life…

Fix the management of the country for the poor and middle class then you can talk about cutting their social safety net.

The Great Society accomplished/is accomplIshing it’s goal. The material lives of the poor have been significantly improved. So far, so good. Now we need to address cultural poverty and find ways to correct abuse of the Great Society programs. I’d be fine with having a work requirement and trying to break the cycle of cultural poverty, which is the real remaining problem that must be addressed. It has to be focused on children growing up poor, who need support systems from schools, social workers, police, community leaders, etc..

It’s worked so far, but we can do better. Better than wasting trillions on elective wars.

“I think you guys miss the point. The question here is what is poor? If the vast majority of ‘poor’ are not poor, suffering, then two things are immediately apparent. There is no justification for increases in social services for them and second what we spent on them now is wasteful.”

Except, of course, the main reason the poor are not really “poor” is becuase of that very spending. Cut that spending and the poor will be more poor. Is that a good thing? Secondly, if a person can’t afford health care, doesn’t that make them poor, even if they can afford an X Box? What do you think health insurance costs, for a family, that doesn’t get it through work? A lot. A whole lot more than just cutting back on PlayStations will provide. This business of “well, they have a
Play Station (or a TV or whatever) so they are not poor” is a bit of a sham. Over the last fifty years or so, but especially over the last twenty, the price of electronic consumer goods, measured in constant dollars, has collapsed. But not the price of health care, higher education, housing, energy and now food. When folks have trouble paying for those things, I think they are poor. Are they as poor as folks in Haiti or Nigeria? No. But the mere presence of a cell phone doesn’t make them NOT poor.

And the argument here is about the present system, not about “increases” in social services.

“Clearly implied in your comments is the disdain for class. Unfortunately, you cannot use government to make us all equal, other than in basic rights. Humans are diverse (unequal).”

Strawman. No one is talking about making everyone “equal.” What is being talked about is a safety net for those on the very bottom. And, indeed, the talk here is about doing away with it, not expanding it so as to even approximate equality. Also, while humans are diverse, equality of opportunity is not even approximate. The notion that everyone on the bottom is there because of either lack of talent or effort and everyone at the top is there because of talent and effort is false. Because who you parents are is the best predictor of where you will end up in life. But, again, no one is even talking about trying to “equalize” for that, rather the talk is of maintaining a basic standard of living for those on the bottom.

“Your analysis on tax history may be correct; I don’t know tax history as well as I should perhaps.”

The information is out there. Admittedly, the fact that the Federal Income Tax did NOT cover anything close to half the population until the WWII era is not particularly easy to find. The “tax justice” folks have pretty much overwhelmed Google with their misleading, ahistorical claims.

“But, you do admit one thing- that it was initially struck down (requiring an amendment). What this should tell you is how antithetical taxation is to the American spirit that a constitutional amendment forced it.”

The income tax was struck down in 1895 because it was not apportioned among the States based on population, which was required of direct Federal taxes by the Constitution. It isn’t as if taxes per se were “antithetical to the American spirit” or even unconstitutional. How do you think government, at every level, was paid for,pre 1913, if not by taxes? Yes, some revenue was raised by the sale of government land, but most of it, at every level (local, State, Federal) was obtained through taxes, of one kind or another. Tariffs, excise taxes and the like at the Federal level, varous forms of property, sales and income taxes at the State and local levels.

“So until you guys acknowledge that I am willing to allow some creative license for the interpretation of modern rates.”

Not sure what that means. I see no reason why I should acknowledge some broad, vague, basically untrue notion about the “American spirit” as a condition of you getting the facts right, if that’s what you mean. Anyway, the facts are what they are, whatever license you choose to take with them.

“The Great Society accomplished/is accomplIshing it’s goal. The material lives of the poor have been significantly improved. So far, so good. Now we need to address cultural poverty and find ways to correct abuse of the Great Society programs. I’d be fine with having a work requirement and trying to break the cycle of cultural poverty, which is the real remaining problem that must be addressed. It has to be focused on children growing up poor, who need support systems from schools, social workers, police, community leaders, etc..It’s worked so far, but we can do better. Better than wasting trillions on elective wars.”

This is the kind of constructive criticism that, I think, makes sense. The programs have worked, to some extent. But we can do better. And that doesn’t mean having to spend more money. There ARE issues of pervese incentives and unintended consequences. And these should be addressed. But jeremiads about cell phones and X Boxes do nothing of the kind.

Poor people, and not excluding women, have been taking the places of the wealthy, in the US Military.

The wealthy–those to whom Mr. Buchanan would have us entrust even more responsibility–turn down chances not only for free civics lessons, but chances to be paid while they’re being educated.

Barack Obama, like nearly every person who’s volunteered to replace him, responds to Basher al-Assad’s attacks on his own people not by calling for a draft, but by performing the dance of the seven veils.

@freemansfarm said, “…the price of electronic consumer goods, measured in constant dollars, has collapsed. But not the price of health care, higher education, housing, energy and now food.”

Outstanding observation! Now let’s go one step further and ask the question “why is that?”

Because, consumer electronic goods are the only item on that list that aren’t either 1) directly subsidized by the government, or 2) fundamentally affected by the devaluation of the currency through deliberate govt. inflation.

We shouldn’t be figuring out how to make welfare or other govt programs work better but, like @Jim Evans states above, we should be changing the political economy so that the govt becomes less relevant in everyones’ lives, the economy grows, and damaging social pathologies are dis-incentivized.

“Except, of course, the main reason the poor are not really “poor” is because of that very spending. Cut that spending and the poor will be more poor. Is that a good thing?”

We don’t know that, and in fact, much data on pre-welfare blacks – greater prevalence of married, two-parent households, less illegitimacy, lower incarceration and dropout rates, greater overall participation in the labor force, (a more revealing measure than the unemployment rate) point to the possibility that, at least for blacks, their future might have brought an improving standard of living without massive government interference. I would even argue that they would be substantially better off than they are today had not government stepped in between fathers and their families.

I’m white, live in an all black nabe, have been there all my life, saw the white flight of the 60’s. I see some very poor blacks every day, rooting in the garbage cans in my alley, so I know poverty exists in America. I also appreciate your reminder that yes, those of us who do not pay federal income tax pay several other taxes and that it is unfair to portray us as freeloaders. Pat Buchanan is on solider ground when he leaves off carping about taxes and focusses on the social and moral costs of welfare dependency. There can be no question that Great Society programs have wreaked enormous damage to the American work ethic, charitable impulses, and many other areas of life.

“We don’t know that, and in fact, much data on pre-welfare blacks – greater prevalence of married, two-parent households, less illegitimacy, lower incarceration and dropout rates, greater overall participation in the labor force, (a more revealing measure than the unemployment rate) point to the possibility that, at least for blacks, their future might have brought an improving standard of living without massive government interference. I would even argue that they would be substantially better off than they are today had not government stepped in between fathers and their families.”

The poverty rate was basically cut in half between 1964 and 1973. And unofficial data suggests it was even higher earlier in the 1950’s. It didn’t really start rising again until the Reagan Revolution. I think that shows the Great Society programs worked, to a large extent. Of course, we’ll never know what would have happened if they hadn’t been implemented. But I see no reason to believe the poverty rate, which was stubbornly high even in the prosperous 1950’s, would have magically declined more than it, in fact, did with the advent of the Great Socity programs.

I agree, though, that the effect on families of the programs was a bad one. Partly this is the fault of conservatives, who did not want “able bodied men” recieving benefits under any circumstances. So the programs were mostly tailored to women and children (AFDC, now TANF, WIC, etc), with the presence of a man in the household being disqualificatory. . And incaration rates are more about conservative-favored “get tough,” “zero tolerance” approaches to drugs, crime, policing and sentencing than they are to liberal social programs.. But, yes, I agree that the “social and moral” costs are worth discussing. Still, to repeat, I don’t think talking about X Boxes adds anything of value to that discussion.

“@freemansfarm said, “…the price of electronic consumer goods, measured in constant dollars, has collapsed. But not the price of health care, higher education, housing, energy and now food.”

“Outstanding observation! Now let’s go one step further and ask the question “why is that?”

Because of innovation and foreign competition.

“Because, consumer electronic goods are the only item on that list that aren’t either 1) directly subsidized by the government, or 2) fundamentally affected by the devaluation of the currency through deliberate govt. inflation.”

Without government subsidies, decent housing and higher education would be even more unobtainable for the poor. As for inflation, yes, that hurts the poor in general. But folks without any income or wealth at all don’t count inflation as their biggest problem. A little inflation combined with government subsidies makes them better off, over all.

“We shouldn’t be figuring out how to make welfare or other govt programs work better but, like @Jim Evans states above, we should be changing the political economy so that the govt becomes less relevant in everyones’ lives, the economy grows, and damaging social pathologies are dis-incentivized.”

In the Thirties, before the New Deal, up to forty per cent of the population was in poverty. In the early Sixties, before the Great Society, close to a quarter of the population was in poverty. At the high tide of the Great Society, only about ten percent of the population was in poverty. I think history shows that pure laisses faire policies are not effective in preventing poverty.

Personally, I consider government aid to the poor simply a cost of having an otherwise free market, highly competitive economy. It is just not socially sustainable or just to have a large percentage of the population of a very wealthy country living a life of material poverty. I could be more of a hardass on this issue if the welfare of children, handicapped, and old folks wasn’t at stake, but that’s very often not the case.

But in a post-industrial, non-agrarian society (where poor people can’t even subsist off the land by gathering, farming and hunting) it seems unreasonable to expect the poor to function in an economy in which housing, food, medicine, clothing are obtained with cash payments.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t do things to encourage the poor to do better for themselves, their children, and for society as a whole. So yes, reform is necessary. Fix it, don’t end it.

I purposely did not address the “poverty rate” – an arbitrary and highly politically manipulated statistic – I said blacks would be better off. I wanted to draw attention to other than merely material measures, just as I think PJB should focus more on the moral implications of welfare dependency than on taxes.

There is such a thing as being poor yet reasonably happy – I’ve been that way most of my life – “reasonably” because we all have to bear some burden and because of natural inequalities of talent, strength, etc. The blacks I see on the once peaceful streets outside my house every day, though they certainly have more material things than the materially poorer ones who first came here in the late 50’s, do not strike me as any happier than their parents and grandparents were – and indeed, in the wildness of their carousing, the heedlessness of their mating, their lack of control of their tempers, they show a desperate sadness. I can’t speak to how it is for other poor whites, but as for blacks, the ill-gotten gains of the confiscated wealth provided by the Great Society have mostly made them fatter, louder, gaudier and more violent.

With Democrats solidly in control during Great Society debates and for most of the preceding decades, and with the Republican “opposition” coming in the form of the Rockefeller wing of the party, in other words, from classical liberals, one cannot lay the blame for the laws’ focus on females on conservatives. Get tough policies leading to higher incarceration rates were a bi-partisan response to the lawlessness produced by left-wing social engineering and the resultant destruction of the family. Those ex-Trotskyites who were famously “mugged by reality” and became tough on crime neocons can hardly be laid to the true conservatives’ account. After all, it was them and their great helmsman FDR who got the whole socialistic, social-engineering ball rolling.

“I purposely did not address the ‘poverty rate’ – an arbitrary and highly politically manipulated statistic – I said blacks would be better off. I wanted to draw attention to other than merely material measures, just as I think PJB should focus more on the moral implications of welfare dependency than on taxes.”

Well, all things being equal, I think folks are better off not living in poverty than living in it. That’s why I did purposely focus on the poverty rare. Any statistic can be accused of manipulability. But “non material” measures are, by definition, going to be totally subjective.

“There is such a thing as being poor yet reasonably happy – I’ve been that way most of my life – “reasonably” because we all have to bear some burden and because of natural inequalities of talent, strength, etc. The blacks I see on the once peaceful streets outside my house every day, though they certainly have more material things than the materially poorer ones who first came here in the late 50′s, do not strike me as any happier than their parents and grandparents were – and indeed, in the wildness of their carousing, the heedlessness of their mating, their lack of control of their tempers, they show a desperate sadness. I can’t speak to how it is for other poor whites, but as for blacks, the ill-gotten gains of the confiscated wealth provided by the Great Society have mostly made them fatter, louder, gaudier and more violent.”

See what I mean?

According to you, poor folks were “happier” when they were poorer. Right. It makes people happy to not have enough food to eat, to live in a tar paper shack, to have to quit school in the sixth grade, etc, etc. I think not.

It seems to me what you are really saying is that you liked it better when Blacks knew their place, kept quiet, wore conservative clothing, and bowed and scraped to white folks like you for fear of Klan retribution if they didn’t.

And “confiscation” is a bullshit term. Constitutional taxes enacted by Congress and the States are not “confiscation.”

“With Democrats solidly in control during Great Society debates and for most of the preceding decades, and with the Republican “opposition” coming in the form of the Rockefeller wing of the party, in other words, from classical liberals, one cannot lay the blame for the laws’ focus on females on conservatives. Get tough policies leading to higher incarceration rates were a bi-partisan response to the lawlessness produced by left-wing social engineering and the resultant destruction of the family.”

I would say the “bi partisanship” was the result of conservative drumbeatng about “crime waves” and the like. Most of which was BS. The right “mau mau’ed” the Democrats into going along with tough sentencing, invasive, constitutional rights destroying policing, and the like. The lawlessness was always overstated, and cynically used by the right as a surrogate for direct racial appeals. See Willy Horton. As for the destruction of the family, again, it was the right that refused to give aid to able bodied men. This is what created the perverse incentive towards family destruction. A poor family with a working father was ineligible for aid, but a poor mother and her children were not.

Easy enough to say the “Democrats were solidly in control,” but that didn’t last long. By 1966 the Great Society consensus in Congress was already falling apart. And then too, there were Democrats and then there were Democrats. Plenty of Democrats, back then, were Southern Democrats of the conservative persuasion. The liberal renaissance of the 1960s lasted but a few years. After that, starting in 1966 and picking up steam in 1968, the reaction had already begun.

“Those ex-Trotskyites who were famously “mugged by reality” and became tough on crime neocons can hardly be laid to the true conservatives’ account.”

I know the ex Trotskyite neo cons come in for a lot of guff around here, and rightly so, but it is hardly the case that the get tough on crime movement was their baby alone. Even less so can it be laid at the door of liberals. It’s what the conservatives, neo and otherwise, wanted, and, indeed, insisted on (see Michael Dukakis and the question re what he would do if his wife was raped).

“After all, it was them and their great helmsman FDR who got the whole socialistic, social-engineering ball rolling.”

Right. The poor would have been much, much better off without FDR. Funny how so few of them thought so.

I should have stopped reading what was obviously going to be a rant when I got to the “tarpaper shacks” bit. I read it all, but here is all the response it deserves.

I lived in and still live in the neighborhood being referred to here, and I know what the housing looked like, having been inside many of these structures before blacks moved in. Anyone using the tarpaper shacks imagery obviously got his talking points either from CPUSA agitprop or Hollywood, circa “Grapes Of Wrath”.

Contrary to lefty ideologues like you, I offer a perspective based on real street-level experience with blacks, an experience that reaches back to a time before welfare use became rampant, and one that few, if any, other whites have. Mine is a rare glimpse of the story that didn’t make the news, and people can choose if they want the voice of an eyewitness or the prattling of a man in his own echo chamber.

Claims of personal, anecdotal experience are easy. And don’t really count for much. I use statistics. You use your alleged personal impressions. And yet I am the one “pratting” in my “own echo chamber,” while your idiosyncratic, unverifiable, subjective ramblings about how happy all the Darkies were back before the days of Civil Righs and the Great Society must be taken at face value. I think not.

You say I am an idealopgue, and use agitprop and Hollywooed for my imagery, because I talk about tar paper shacks. Well, plenty of Black folks (and white folks too)actually lived in tar paper shacks pre the Great Society. Maybe not in your neighborhood, but then your neighborhood is not the whole country, is it? And it’s funny that you would level these accusations at me, when you say things like this:

“in the wildness of their carousing, the heedlessness of their mating, their lack of control of their tempers, they show a desperate sadness….for blacks, the ill-gotten gains of the confiscated wealth provided by the Great Society have mostly made them fatter, louder, gaudier and more violent”

which pretty much covers every hackneyed, racist stereotype about Black people in the book, combined with a know it all, unctuous, paternalistic, psudo concern with with what you claim is their “sadness.”